As a fellow, Tello will receive funding and training to support her education and facilitate her service to underserved minority populations.

The NBCC Minority Fellowship Program is made possible by a grant awarded to NBCC by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration in August 2012. The program's goals are to encourage diversity in counseling and increase the number of professional counselors to underserved populations.

Tello is one of 24 doctoral-level counseling students selected to receive the fellowship. It is accompanied by a $20,000 education award.

She is a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin and UTSA, where she is pursuing a doctoral degree in counselor education and supervision. Her counseling experience includes working with college students at public four-year institutions and working in agencies serving children and adolescents from low-income communities.

“Improving Schools: The Art of Leadership,” is a Harvard institute designed for principals in their first five years of service. Attendees are selected through a competitive process that includes an application, series of essays and interviews.

In Texas, that process is managed by Raise Your Hand Texas, a non-profit organization that screens applicants, selects awardees and funds all expenses associated with attendance.

“This was the most substantive professional development opportunity I have ever participated in,” said Franks was among 145 leaders to attend the June 23-29 institute.

“I learned so much about myself as a person and as leader,” she said I learned from the esteemed lecturers as well as from other principals.

“I purposely applied for this institute to hone and refine leadership skills,” she said.

“This was not a program designed to 'fix' things or 'give you all the answers,'” Franks said, “but to make one think and discover. A big take-away for me was adaptive knowledge that will enhance my leadership skills and support teacher effectiveness and student achievement.”

A number of the goals she and her team develop for Curington Elementary in the coming school year will reflect the themes and information Franks gained at Harvard.

While classroom time in Cambridge was intense, institute attendees found time for Boston-flavored fun, as well. Franks took in a Red Sox game at Fenway Park and enjoyed a New England clam bake to close out the institute.

Franks, who will begin her second year this fall as principal at Curington, is the second current Boerne ISD principal to attend the Harvard institute. Ellie Maxwell, principal at Cibolo Creek Elementary, is an institute alumnae.

She received a composite score of 36, an achievement equaled by less than a tenth of 1 percent of all test takers. Among ACT-tested U.S. high school graduates in the class of 2012, only 781 out of more than 1.66 million students earned the highest possible score.

She also was chosen to participate in the prestigious Voelcker Scholars program at the health science center that admits 20 area high-school students annually to do biomedical research under the direction of faculty members.

Brooke Dippo-Foderaro, a 2013 graduate of TMI - The Episcopal School of Texas who was chosen Miss San Antonio earlier this year, received a special award presented at the Miss Texas Pageant July 7.

She is the recipient of a National Merit Scholarship from the State Farm Cos. Foundation and will be a freshman at the University of San Diego in the fall, with plans to follow a pre-dental track to become an orthodontist.